At first glance I agreed with Karasuhato completely. (Story id: 1241603 are final fantasy games sexist?)

Take Tifa Lockheart, yes her, the girl from FF7 with the breast implants, the too short shorts and the skimpy halter-top. How degrading can square be towards women? She’s a sex object for the gratification of men, and that’s her only function within the game. Look at the rest of them, You can almost see the panties of Selphie, Aries is nothing but a flirt, and what about Rinoa, she switches affections to fast, so she must be a slut. The rest are either weak willed or over dependent on the men in their life.

Surely Squaresoft is sexist and their Female characters are nothing but Sex objects.

However when I’d had time to consider the question more fully, I changed my opinion on the subject.

Tifa is criticised because of her outfit, usually along the lines that only a slut would dress like that. However her actions and attitudes do not support this conclusion. Tifa is portrayed as a very strong yet good-hearted character, who can hold her own in battle. She is an intelligent young woman, able to pull her weight within Avalanche, and an equal of the male members of the group. She is not a weak willed damsel in distress, in fact in a break with tradition she actually manages to escape by herself at one point.

Quistis from FF8 is another positively portrayed female character. She is very mature for her age (18) and was at the start of the game holding a position of responsibility as an instructor in Garden. She is praised by her students for her looks and intelligence, but does not let this inflate her ego. And in battle she can be one of the strongest characters with the use of her Blue Magic. Some people have criticised her for having an obvious crush on Squall, saying it weakens her character. But flaws like this make her character more real, who hasn't had a crush on someone unobtainable?

If squares primary goal in creating female characters to be sex objects the results would be different. Maybe at some point in a totally gratuitous scene Rinoa would strip off and take a shower, while the camera panned down her dripping wet and naked body, or deliberately focus on a females chest or legs. Of course the female characters are sexy to an extent, but if your going to criticize

Square for there good looking females, you may as well criticize them for there males, with equally good looks and unobtainable athletic abilities, when was the last time you saw a normal seventeen year old with the looks of Squall?

Good looks are part of the escapism element of video games, but Squaresoft never overly played up this element making it one of the games selling points. Something which other developers have done, take Dead or Alive, would the average teenage boy chose this game for the combat and graphical quality or for the chance to see a scantily clad woman beating up another scantily clad woman.

Then there is Tomb Raider, in the first game Lara is portrayed as tough, smart and deadly, but as the series continued she became more about fan service, her attitude became deliberately sexual, and her physic more and more unrealistic. And before you complain that Tifa had a similarly unobtainable physic, Squaresoft never focused on this physic as a large part of the final fantasy gaming experience. In Tomb raider the camera angles seem to zoom in on her chest, or between her legs while she is swimming. Her smart confident attitude still their, but her role as a sex object over shadows it.

In conclusion Squaresoft Females are not just designed for the visual pleasure of Teenage boys, unlike most other female video game characters, and are portrayed in a much more positive manner.

By Rem

Feb 2003